Kr 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT IN ITS 
SPONTANEITY AND ITS LIBERTY. 



'tfSW\ 03 

AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LITERARY SOCIETIES 



OP 






HAMILTON COLLEGE, 



JULY 22, 1846. 



CLINTON, N. Y. 



BY REV. LAURENS P. HICKOK, D. D. s 

| (/* / / ZJF%aJ0E£5$8ESB* of Auburn Theological Seminary. 



UTICA: 

R. W. ROBERTS, PRINTER, 58 GENESEE STREET. 

1846. 



INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT IN ITS 
SPONTANEITY AND ITS LIBERTY. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LITERAKY SOCIETIES 



HAMILTON COLLEGE, 

JULY 22, 1846, 

CLINTON, N. Y. 



BY REV. LAURENS Pv HICKOK, D. D, 



UTICA: 

R. W. ROBERTS, PRINTER, 58 GENESEE STREET. 
1846. 



|0* > 






CORRESPONDENCE 



Hamilton College, Sept. 16, 1846. 
Rev. Dr. Hickok, 

Sir : — The Phcenix Society of Hamilton College, through the 
undersigned, their Committee, return thanks for the able and interesting 
Address, you delivered before them at their last Anniversary, and 
request a copy of the same for publication. 

With the highest esteem, 
Yours, &c, 

L. TENNEY, 
E. CLARK, 
R. P. KEYES, 



Auburn, Sept. 18, 1846. 
Messrs. Tenney, Clark & Keyes, Committee, &c. 

I comply with your request to be furnished with a copy of my 
Address for publication, in the same spirit with which I prepared and 
delivered it, and if the subject of "intellectual development and discipline," 
shall in either way become more extensively studied, my end will have 
been thereby attained. 

Yours respectfully, 

L. P. HICKOK. 



ADDRESS. 



The plant grows. It is the development of a germ 
from within, not an aggregation of elements put together 
from the outside. The majestic oak has not been built 
up by accumulating materials one upon another, but an 
inner force diffusing itself throughout, has expanded it to 
its maturity. The tree is a whole, having its root, stock 
and branches in an organized unity. 

This inner force is the life, which as one agency works 
in and through every part. It assimilates to its own 
incorporation every element which it receives, and ever- 
more circumscribes its working within that original form 
which is given to it, and which it is its sole task to expand 
to its maturity. Mechanical agencies work on their 
materials, and put them together in juxtaposition ; vital 
agencies work in their elementary parts, and unite them 
in one living body. In all mechanical operations the 
product takes on the form determined for it by adventi- 
tious circumstances ; but in all vital action, the form that 
must be evolved is already prescribed in the rudiments of 
the primitive germ. Thus heaps of gravel or shifting 
hills of sand take on such shapes as may be given to 
them, by the waves of the ocean or the winds of the 
desert ; and lofty mountain ranges lift their bare rocks 
and bleak summits to the sky, in such outlines as the 
upheaving of volcanic action from beneath or the abrasion 
of the warring elements from above has determined. 
But every vegetable or animal form, has its archetype 
within its own being, and in its maturity is the sponta- 



neous product of an inner working after its own primitive 
law of development. 

Now this law of vital action may be taken as an anala- 
gon of that inner mental force, by which there is secured 
a complete intellectual development. My general design 
is to follow up this analogy, to the attainment of some 
principles and the application of some maxims, which can 
not safely be overlooked in either the training of other 
minds or the discipline of our own. There are two 'points 
of view from which this intellectual development is to be 
contemplated. A mind already ripened to maturity, and 
whose faculties have attained great compass, elasticity and 
vigor, has reached this state through the energizing of an 
inner force, perseveringly at work for the consummation 
of its own end in the production of such an expanded 
capacity. And now, one point of view is, to contemplate 
this inner force as carrying on its work of mental devel- 
opment, through an entirely spontaneous agency ; and in 
this view of its spontaneity, we shall find a strict analogy 
between the laws of vital and of intellectual development. 
Here we shall find our principles ; and an exposition, of 
the controlling authority which these must hold over all 
the process of mental culture, is one end which I have 
proposed to myself in this investigation. 

But another point of view discloses a very striking 
peculiarity. This inner mental force is very much subject- 
ed to our voluntary control. In this point of liberty, the 
analogy between vital and mental growth wholly fails. 
Here we shall attain our maxims; the application of which 
to all mental discipline, I have proposed as another end in 
this discussion. 

While, then, we are to look at the growth of mind in its 
spontaneity for our principles, and at this growth in its 
liberty for our maxims ; let it, also, be farther premised, 
that the results which we now seek to attain respect rather 
the intellectual than the moral character of the man ; and 



we are then prepared to proceed directly with our inves- 
tigation. 

The mind, as truly as the plant, has a spontaneous 
growth. The rudiments of the future man are already in 
the infant germ, and the most brilliant genius or profound 
talent can only be a development of an already existing 
potentiality. An opening bud and an expanding flowre 
are objects of deeply interesting contemplation, as the 
work goes on from day to day ; but how much more 
intense the interest, while we watch the process of mental 
growth from the first dawnings of infantile consciousness 
upwards to the full maturity of manly thought and pur- 
pose ! The inner conditions give the controlling law to 
the entire process ; so that, knowing the law, we may 
beforehand know that some things may, and some other 
things may not, be brought out of the young mind. On 
this ground alone is it, that education can ever become a 
science. To educate, is to educe from mind, that which 
inherently though incipiently belongs to mind ; and all 
attempted mental culture and discipline, in the ignorance 
or a neglect of these laws, is mere empiricism. 

In tracing out the analogies of spontaneous development, 
we may make an exposition of this as our first principle — 
that no external culture can he effectual) except as the inner 
agency is awakened into action. 

External appliances are but occasions for the action of 
the inner vital energy. The inherent vitality is the 
efficient in the germination and growth of the plant, the 
sunshine and the shower are but the conditions. Heat 
and moisture and the most congenial soil are utterly inef- 
fectual, when the seed or the root is without life. And 
where the living germ is set in a fruitful place, it is by its 
own quickening force within, that it is made to put forth, 
" first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in 
the ear." No culture can make the dead stock grow, nor 
bring out fruit from dry branches. The work goes on 



8 

within the plant, or it avails nothing how much is done on 
the outside. The inner agency may require conditions for 
putting forth its efficiency, but conditions result in no 
development of the germ, except through the vital energiz- 
ing of the quickening spirit within. 

Spiritus intus alit, totamque iufusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpora miscet. 

It is ever thus, also, with the development of the intel- 
lect. The efficiency of the mind's growth is a force from 
within itself. All external influences are but occasions 
more or less favorable for the activity of this inner causa- 
tion. No matter how propitious the surrounding conditions, 
if this internal working is not going on, the mind can not 
grow ; and no matter how inauspicious the outward 
circumstances, if this inner mental energy be aroused the 
mind will grow, and every faculty come out in all the 
ripeness and richness of a matured development. In 
every generation, there may be witnessed many a mind, 
that has been placed in the midst of the most congenial 
conditions and kindliest influences ; that has met the 
happiest opportunities for lifting itself up to greatness ; 
possessed advantages which others would have seized and 
improved with avidity and success ; but which, because 
the slumbering energy of its own stupid spirit was not 
aroused, has remained torpid and imbecile, a dwarfed 
and stinted intellect, unconscious of the smothered fires 
and suppressed forces within, and incompetent to stand 
alone amid the jostling movements of the world without. 
Academic advantages and College privileges are invaluable 
to a young man, as affording the most favorable conditions 
for intellectual growth ; but the genial warmth, and 
softening dew of heaven, are not more useless upon the 
barren heath, than are all these kindly influences upon 
the dormant faculties of the dunce, who will not wake 
and can not think. 



It is often said, that the circumstances make the man. 
The correct form of expressing the meaning here intended 
is this, the circumstances give the man occasion for 
making himself. No circumstances can avail any thing, 
except as the inner kindling of genius shall seize upon 
them and intrepidly use them for its purpose. The period 
of our revolution was a time which emphatically " tried 
men's souls," and forced them to stand amid scenes of 
deep excitement and weighty responsibilities. It was the 
occasion for a development of such mighty minds as 
Adams, Franklin, Jay, and Washington. A noble band 
of heroes with warm hearts and clear heads and iron will 
were brought to act in concert, from different parts of 
their distressed country, and who exhibited an earnestness, 
wisdom, fortitude, and hardihood be} 7 ond all ordinary 
example. But such were not all the minds on whom 
these influences rested. There was many a weak and 
stupid soul during all the spirit-stirring days of that great 
conflict. No mind that did not make those scenes an 
occasion for arousing up its inner energies, and calling 
into action all its hidden forces, was made at all either 
the greater or the better thereby. Then, as ever, minds 
grew great and strong from the inner working of their 
own native powers, and it was this ceaseless inner action 
alone which sent such mighty men to move upon that field 
of the world's history. Nor, though such stimulating 
occasions do not occur, is the mind doomed to littleness 
and weakness. The vital energy sleeps within, and 
needs only to be aroused, and it may make its own 
occasions, and create its own conditions, for expanding 
every faculty to its broadest comprehension. No depres- 
sing circumstances of obscurity, or poverty, or delayed 
opportunity, need to hold it in its embryo state ; let the 
strugglings of the inner life begin, and its growth is sure. 
Let its pent up energies press till they find their fitting 
time to strike, and like the hidden lightnings of the 

B 



10 

cloud, it will one day make itself to be seen, and heard, 
and felt. 

Igneus est ollis vigor, et coelestis origo 
Seminibus. 

It is a most miserable, though not a very uncommon 
delusion, to assume that greatness may often be fortuitous, 
and that maturity and vigor of intellect may be reached 
at a leap, when the critical exigency shall demand the 
prompt action. This delusion may become the more 
confirmed, by some instances of great talent in spite 
of the neglect of early advantages ; or, sudden flashes 
of great and brilliant success, while much time is passed 
in indolence or devoted to pleasure. But these uncom- 
mon cases are not exceptions to our principle. No 
expanded intellectual development has ever occurred, 
without the strong workings of the hidden force within. 
If the process has been long deferred, the later action 
must be proportionally the more energetic. The growth 
can not be but as the work goes on within ; and it 
is only when you are conscious of the effervescence 
of this inner spirit, waking vivid imaginings, deep 
thoughts, and high aspirations, warming the soul in 
the glow and fervor of its own enthusiasm, that you have 
any sure warrant that the mind is then in its process of 
expansion. Whether more or less rapid, the development 
only then goes on when the forces are struggling from 
within. Demosthenes' eloquence, Caesar's rapid con- 
quests, Buonaparte's terrible victories, and Canning's 
keen political sagacity, are all illustrations of astonishing 
intellectual developments under the working of an inherent 
energy, invincible and perpetual. 

A second principle is — that no cultivation can bring out 
of the germ any other, or any more, than that which is con- 
naturally within it. 

External culture may occasion wide modifications in 
the intensity and direction of the inner living energy, but 



11 

when this is aroused to its greatest force, it can carry the 
work onwards only within its own organization. It can 
give expansion to that distinct and orderly rudimental 
being alone, within which it has been made to take up its 
lodging-place. This inner vitality creates nothing ; sub- 
stitutes nothing in the place of that which already is ; it 
can only make that, in which it is, to grow. When the 
seed has fallen into the earth, and the genial influences of 
the spring have supplied the conditions for the germinating 
power to act, that awakened activity must exhaust itself 
in the development of that which it finds already within 
its own body. In the grain of wheat, it pushes out to 
maturity the rudimental forms already there — the slender 
leaf, the jointed cylindrical stalk, and the serrated bearded 
ear : in the pea, its succulent stem, papilionaceous flower, 
and pendant pods : in the pine cone, the tall taper shaft, 
and at its top the spreading tufted branches. Change the 
locality and the soil for these seeds as we may, vary the 
methods of culture as we please, if still the vital force 
exerts itself at all, it must subject itself in its action to the 
law which its own germinal forms impose upon it. The 
energy may be made more intense in one portion of the 
organization, and diminished or withdrawn from another 
portion, and thereby the proportions in actual development 
may be indefinitely modified ; but that which is can still 
only have been the growth of that which was. On which 
side soever of the pine trunk the vital sap shall be urged, 
it will still be the pine branch with its acuminous leaves, 
and not the palm with its broad foliage, that is developed. 
The acorn has not within it the form of the hawthorn, nor 
can any method of culture bring that form out of it. It 
has not within it the type of any animal, and no incuba- 
tion can fetch a feathered fowl from it, nor can the warm 
sands in which it may fall hatch it into an ostrich or a 
tortoise. If there be any development it must take on the 
form of the oak, inasmuch as that form only is given 



12 

within it. Thus with the seed, the egg, and the embryon, 
they must evolve themselves after the primeval type of 
their own inner being. The law is in the germ, and the 
vital force can not transcend it. It can expand that which 
is, but by no means can it go back and originate a new, 
nor go out and work in another, organization. 

Thus, also, with the development of the intellect. It is 
the product of a causation necessarily circumscribing itself, 
and exhausting all its energizing within its own organism. 
What it finds there it may expand to its maturity, but it 
can originate no new faculty, nor make any change in the 
constitutional capacities of the rudimental being. It is 
competent, thus, to teach the parrot to talk, the falcon to 
strike and bring back its prey, the dog to watch, carry 
and fetch, &c, inasmuch as there is a native susceptibility 
to instruction in these animated beings, and to these par- 
ticular results. An inner power may be excited by which 
such developments may be secured. But there are intel- 
lectual processes to which no animal can attain. No 
animal can make itself the object of its own reflection, and 
thus teach itself by thinking without the experience of the 
senses — can construct within its own subjective being the 
diagrams of geometry, and use the intuitions of pure math- 
ematics — can apprehend the maxims of morality, and 
govern its actions by the Decalogue. There are no native 
rudimental faculties for such attainments, and therefore no 
cultivation can secure such a development. But in the 
human mind, all those faculties which are essential to 
humanity, and without which the being would be some- 
thing other than man, exist in the constitutional elements 
of his earliest being. The germ of the human intellect is 
originally something other, and something more, than the 
anima of the brute ; hence, the development of the human 
transcends all that is possible in the animal. 

But, while all that is essential to humanity must be an 
original inheritance of all minds, yet may there be peculiar 



13 

and specific constitutional attributes which do not at all 
belong to some minds. It is not essential to the common 
humanity that every man should be a wit, or a mimic, or 
a satirist, or even a poet. Some men may, perhaps, be 
all these, and to some other men all these may, perhaps, 
be impossibilities. In the native germ of some minds 
there may be, and in others there may not be, the rudi- 
ments for such specific development. The ancient dictum 
expresses a truth for every age — -poeta nascitur, non fit. 
In many other cases, the original germs may have the 
same elementary attributes, and yet some admit of a much 
farther development, and thus give their characteristic in 
a higher degree, than others. It is not competent to all 
minds that, by any culture, they should become distin- 
guished mathematicians ; nor could all mathematicians 
become great statesmen, orators, or philosophers ; nor 
could all such again become eminent in painting and 
sculpture. In many of these particulars, there may be a 
native susceptibility which in its cultivation admits of 
some development, but which is still small even in its 
maturity, and no excitement of the inner action can carry 
out its growth any farther. Differences of native endow- 
ment will thus secure distinct characteristics and degrees 
of attainment among men, which no modifications of 
external cultivation can preclude. They could not be 
made to grow alike, though the inner force in each were 
quickened alike, inasmuch as the original rudiments were 
themselves unlike. 

While, therefore, it is the business of all education, 
whether that of self-culture and discipline or that of 
instructing others, to bring out in mature development 
every opening faculty, and to this end is every favoring 
external influence to be employed which may be an 
occasion of stimulating the agency within ; yet is it wholly 
absurd and vain to expect from the development of any 
mind something other, and something more, than the 



14 

native germ originally possessed. When the inner force 
has been thoroughly aroused, and is directed in the best 
manner, and is perpetuated in its action with quenchless 
ardor and tireless vigor, then is the man making the most 
of himself, and securing the most complete and compre- 
hensive development of which his intellectual nature is 
capable. When thus brought out in its maturity, his 
comparative mental capacity is then the righteous measure 
of his real worth and rank among other intelligences. 
And when an instructor of youth has so arranged his 
system of education, and adapted his plan of discipline, 
and applied his stimulants, as the most effectually to 
arouse and the most favorably to direct the working of 
this internal energy of the intellect, he has then filled his 
whole province, and is faithfully fulfilling his whole duty, 
and most successfully completing his work. If the minds 
on which he works should many of them still prove to be 
rude and dull, stinted and feebly developed, the reason 
for this is to be sought either in the delinquencies of the 
pupil or the parsimony of nature. Where the real mother 
wit is wanting, no teaching can supply the deficiency. It 
would exceed the tyranny of even Egyptian taskmasters, 
to require the Faculty in our Colleges to render " the full 
tale" of clear, strong, and long-headed men to the world, 
when those heads had been given into their hand utterly 
empty. We must, perforce, be content with bringing out 
and maturing just what and how much of native talent the 
original intellectual germ contains. 

A third principle is — that no healthy growth can be 
secured by forced processes and factitious appliances. 

By an artificial supply of heat and moisture, it is easy 
to force an unnatural and sickly growth in defiance of an 
uncongenial locality or an improper season. Tropical 
plants may thus be made to develop themselves in our 
northern climate, and any seeds to germinate and grow 
in the winter. But these productions of the hot-house 



15 

can never come to their maturity, and ripen and perfect 
their fruit where they are, nor bide the sharp changes 
and rough blasts of an out-door exposure. The needful 
conditions of light, and air, and temperature, are not 
supplied in their full and free proportions, and though the 
plant unfolds, yet is its stock weak, its branches stinted, 
and its fruit insipid. 

Nor can any factitious applications of that which still 
belongs to, and is borrowed from, something else be of 
any benefit. To the plant or the animal, all is a foreign 
substance which is not vitalized and assimilated to itself 
through its own proper action. The scion inserted from 
another stock attains no incorporation into its new stem, 
except as the one vital action from the root enters it and 
diffuses itself throughout. The limbs of one animal can 
not be enlarged and strengthened by the food digested in 
the stomach, and the blood which flows in the veins of 
another. 

The analogy, in both these particulars, applied to the 
intellect, will expose the emptiness, if it can not cure the 
arrogance of many high pretensions in mental cultivation. 
There are empirics in education as well as in medicine ; 
and the quackery which meddles with mind is quite as 
mischievous as that which tampers with the health of the 
body. Specific rules, and assumed astonishing inventions 
and improvements, in the art of teaching different branch- 
es of science, become nearly as plenty, and about as 
thoroughly puffed, as patent nostrums, while local " insti- 
tutes" and itinerating lecturers rival in numbers our 
modern medical theorists and travelling pill- venders. In 
process of time it may perhaps be hoped that both these 
evils shall cure themselves. When it shall be but a little 
more fully seen, that those wonderful improvements in the 
healing art only increase the numbers of the sick and the 
dying, and these boasted new-lights in education rapidly 
multiply all kinds of noisy, conceited, shallow pretenders, 



16 

the community will become heartily tired of them both, 
and buy wisdom from a most annoying experience. 
Where mere dieams and empty speculations are made to 
take the place of established laws of mental development, 
and the most crude and superficial theories are made to 
supplant old and long proved systems of thorough mental 
discipline, it can not be long before the wort'hlessness of 
the product will effectually convince the world of either 
the folly or the knavery of the manufacturer. 

No machinery for artificially forcing knowledge into 
mind, or for heaping accomplishments upon mind, can 
subserve any good purpose. Precocious developments 
are usually unhealthy, and ordinarily soon blighted ; and 
all ambitious attempts to bring the young mind to an early 
maturity, and make the child to exhibit the characteristics 
and attainments of an adult, by the process of a precise 
training and constrained imitation and affected speech, is 
merely a mechanical torturing of nature, and about as 
successful as would be the application of presses and 
pullies to the young shoot, for forcing it in a season to the 
tall oak, the growth of a century. Inventions for teaching 
languages, and grammar, and elocution, and the art of 
composition in both prose and poetry, by a few arbitrary 
rules, and in the process of a half a dozen lectures, 
constitute another species of modern literary charlatanry ; 
and which would be quite equaled in propriety and utility 
by hanging artificial flowers and fruits amid the green 
leaves of a barren fig-tree. All attempts of one mind to 
transfer to itself the attainments of another, and superin- 
duce upon itself the erudition of the other by merely 
adopting his conclusions, and learning to repeat his senti- 
ments by rote, and which is no very uncommon method 
of seeming to be a very wise and learned man, are yet 
alike vain and foolish. A man may take his almanac, 
just as the printer gives it to him, without the capacity to 
correct any error made by the press, or even to determine 



17 

whether there is any error. He simply transfers to 
himself the copy just as it is. The most superficial 
observation detects the deceitful pretension, and despises 
the silly affectation. Grapes may hang upon thorns, and 
figs be stuck upon thistles, but no man will be deluded 
into the belief that they ever grew there. So, again, the 
man may try to be learned by rules, and technical terms, 
and phrases which embody abstract principles ; and thus 
make his memory the go-cart to carry round artificial 
examples and prescribed formulas, which are to be prac- 
tically but mechanically applied to the cases that come up 
in his experience, and all to be determined by the arbitrary 
standard ; instead of relying upon a mind properly 
disciplined and developed, which flashes out the light of 
its own sound judgment upon its pathway in every critical 
emergency. 

All these merely factitious and mechanical processes 
for training the intellect, overlook wholly the very nature 
and law of mental development. They exclude utterly 
the universal fact that no mind really grows except in its 
own action. They seek to make the mind take on its 
increase from without, and not to expand from its own 
energy within. Its attainments are to be already packed 
up by other hands and laid on it, rather than the products 
of its own teeming vitality, and which it may at all times 
use free and gracefully as the body may its members. 
Many such a burdened and overlaid mind is found in all 
communities. Garrulous, pedantic, and conceited, such a 
man obtrudes his counsel and opinion on all occasions, 
and wastes his words and wisdom with unsparing prodi- 
gality, conscious that there is enough more in the place 
from whence so much has already come. His mind is a 
mere receptacle, and by tapping it at any time, there runs 
out just what has been put in. Its whole use is to hold 
the content until it is needed, and then pour out the quan- 
tum sufhcit. Science is a mere bundle of facts and 



18 

formulas, which may be transferred and distributed 
from one mind to another, as the merchant supplies his 
customers. 

Now, a clear and correct view of the process of mental 
development to its maturity, so far as it is a spontaneous 
growth through the action of an inner force, will correct 
the above unphilosophical and hurtful methods of instruc- 
tion. Let every mind attain the thorough conviction, that it 
must itself work if it would grow ; and let no confidence 
be placed in any boasted schemes of education or self- 
discipline which dispense at all with this controlling law 
of intellectual expansion. No benefit ever did nor ever 
will accrue, by attempting such a work without, or against 
nature. 

And now, if minds grew like trees altogether sponta- 
neously, we should here have finished our work by 
exhausting the subject. But the analagon, exact thus far, 
wholly ceases beyond this. The inner efficiency of plants 
and animals in their development is wholly necessitated 
by its conditions. As within law, its working is orderly, 
progressively, perpetually, wherever the conditions are 
given ; but, as under necessity it must keep its determined 
pathway, with no capability to swerve from the laws 
imposed upon it. Hence, trees and animals grow and die, 
under fixed laws and particular conditions determined for 
them, and with no responsibility to either the law or the 
condition. But in the growth of mind this analogy does 
not hold. In its spontaneity, the law necessitates that, like 
the plant, all its unfoldings must be effected through the 
agency of an inner force, and that this inner force can 
push to maturity those rudiments only which are already 
given ; but altogether beyond this, mind has within itself 
the high prerogative of a voluntary control over the action 
and the direction of this inner energy. It may for itself 
determine, amid all the conditions of its being, whether 
the living power within shall lie smothered and suppressed, 



19 

or whether it shall be aroused and pour itself through 
every intellectual faculty. It possesses a liberty, whereby 
it is competent for itself to decide, whether it shall take 
the laws of spontaneity into identity with its own being, 
and spread itself forth in any or all the prescribed forms 
which those laws shall give to it ; or, whether it shall lie, 
like the seed beneath the frosts of winter, torpid and 
inert as the clods which cover it. There is, therefore, in 
every mind, that which makes the manner of its being 
awful ; throwing upon itself the responsibility of both 
whether it shall grow, and, under the laws of spontaneity, 
how it shall grow. 

That lay, more than historic, is prophetic, 
Wherein, of the budding and the opening 
Of a human spirit, thou shalt dare to tell 
What may be told, to the understanding mind 
Kevealable ; and what within the mind, 
J, By vital breathings secret as the soul 

Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart 

Thoughts all too deep for words! — 

Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears, 

Of tides obedient to an inner force, 

And currents self-determined. 

This additional fact, of a liberty in intellectual develop- 
ment, makes it necessary that we pursue this subject 
some farther, though the time demands that we progress 
more rapidly. The spontaneity of the process has 
furnished us with some first principles in mental 
cultivation, the liberty of this process will now supply 
some a priori maxims in the same field. These maxims 
are, at least, quite as important as the principles. 

The first maxim, under this consideration of liberty, is 
— that every mind is responsible for the full development of its 
intellectual germ. 

Responsibility reaches to the full extent of the liberty. 
Where simple spontaneity only is, there no obligation can 
be imposed. The condition being supplied, the agency 



20 

goes out in its blindness without an alternative. But, by 
how much the mind is competent to affect itself in the 
freedom of its agency, by so much is it the subject of 
inalienable responsibility. It has no capacity to put the 
rudiments of originally new faculties within itself; nor, 
lo give those which it already possesses, any farther 
growth and broader development than their full maturity. 
If creative energy, out of itself, were exerted to superin- 
duce new endowments upon original rudiments, the mind 
may be said to have a capacity to receive more ; but this 
is simply the capacity of a void, and would be only 
saying, that where Omnipotence has created some rudi- 
mental faculties, there is room for the same creative 
energy to go farther, if he please, and create more. Such 
a capacity confers no responsibility. The determination, 
whether Omnipotence shall create new faculties in any 
mind, is nothing for which that mind can be made 
accountable. 

But, for the kindling up the inner energy, and diffusing 
its vivifying force through the entire organism of its own 
being, and thus forcing out every elementary faculty to 
complete maturity, so far as the conditions and the time 
may be supplied, for this every mind is responsible, 
because all this comes within its liberty. If one talent be 
" hid in the earth," the slothful servant must be called to 
account for it. The entire mental germ is a trust commit- 
ted ; the end to be attained is its full development ; this 
can be secured in no way except through its own inner 
working, and this is within the sphere of its liberty ; there 
must, therefore, • be responsibility in this stewardship. 
The end of its being is attained only in its growing. 
That seed, which, when cast into the earth, does not 
germinate, might as well have been a pebble. The end 
for which it exists as a seed is not attained. And so also 
that intellect, by how much it fails of being developed to 
its perfect stature, might as well have been a clod. Mind, 



21 

immortal mind, is worthless, if it will not grow ; and as 
it grows only in its own action, every obligation presses 
upon it, that it keep the inner work going on, until it has 
become completely ripened. 

A second maxim is — that every mind is under the obligation 
to secure a symmetrical development. 

Monsters are not of nature's make, but the product in 
some way of an obstruction or perversion of nature. 
The seed has within itself the rudiments for the well- 
formed and complete plant, and if in the process of 
development the plant become stinted, or distorted and 
misshapen, there must be some external interference, 
deranging the spontaneous law of its inner action. 

The intellectual germ is also in its original being 
capable of an orderly, well-balanced, symmetrical devel- 
opment. It is doubtless true, that each mind has that 
within its earliest rudimental being, which discriminates it 
from all other minds, but yet each, in its maturity, may be 
made a complete and consistent whole, if not perverted 
in its process of growth. How much unavoidable condi- 
tions, and unconsciousness of what the man might make 
of himself, may excuse a faulty development, we will not 
here attempt to decide ; but inasmuch as the arousing and 
directing of the mental energy is within the man's control, 
and that occasions also for the discipline of any faculty 
may be made by the man himself, it follows that every 
mind must assume for itself the chief responsibility for the 
form and qualities which it takes on in its growth. 
Circumstances sometimes seem to favor the development 
of some one faculty more than others, and a redundancy 
of the mental force energizes in this direction, while the 
requisite action is thereby diverted from others. The 
mind, in this way, often acquires peculiarities and 
idiosyncrasies which are wholly factitious, and always 
very undesirable. Not seldom is the distortion found to 



$ 

22 

be quite uncomfortable to others, and greatly detrimental 
to the man himself. 

But such a mind is itself to blame, for permitting that 
it should thus have become unbalanced and one-sided. 
The perverse inclination, tending inordinately in one 
direction, should have been counteracted, and the inner 
power made to diffuse itself more equably. Other facul- 
ties should have been brought out in their vigor, and if 
any important rudiments had seemed to be naturally more 
feeble, the cherishing influence should have been made 
especially to spend itself upon that which was lacking. 
Each mind is bound to make itself its own object of 
watchful observation while it is growing, and subject 
itself to the correcting hand of its own workmanship. It 
should skillfully turn itself, and temper the inner force 
by which its expansion is carried on wisely, as the glass- 
blower does his vessel, that it may while pliant and 
yielding assume the required shape, and be perfected in 
capacity and symmetry. 

There is a strong liability, often in the young and 
growing intellect, because the employment of some favor- 
ite faculty is more gratifying, to keep that in constant 
exercise ; the result of which must, of course, be that this 
favored faculty has become overgrown, and others have 
been dwarfed ; and that mind must henceforth limp on 
through life, because its faculties, like " the legs of the 
lame are not equal." The man is " the architect of his 
own fortune," not only ; and moreover is the author of his 
own moral character, not merely ; but he should be made 
to feel that it is his own agency which shapes his intellect- 
ual proportions. Every man, in reference to his growth 
intellectually, is a self-made man, and if he has made 
himself one-sided and monstrously misshapen, it is 
directly his own fault. Others may have their share of 
blame in applying the wrong stimulants, and surrounding 
him by ill-judged conditions, but his is the blame of yield- 



I 

23 

ing to the conditions, and permitting occasions to shape 
his intellectual development in undirected spontaneity, 
without awakening in his liberty, and taking the direction 
of this so momentous a process. The lily may grow in 
beauty and glorious array, beyond the splendor of Solo- 
mon's royal robes, without toil ; but, nor Solomon's, nor 
any mortal's wisdom, and sound, strong, self-balanced 
judgment will be attained, without great self-exertion and 
careful self-discipline. The man, by careful study and 
watchful discipline may so control his intellectual growth, 
that at its maturity every mental effort shall be free and 
joyous, as the limbs of childhood in their sports ; or, he 
may so leave the whole process to perverting influences, 
that all confidence in his mental capacity for special 
emergencies, shall like the proverb, be as " a broken 
tooth, or a foot out of joint." 

A third maxim is — that personal retribution is inevitable. 

"Just as the twig is bent, the tree 's inclined." 

No sooner, by some external violence, does any obliquity 
take place in the tender stem of the growing plant, than 
the flowing sap rushes on through the distortion, and the 
inner vital force conforms to the direction, and the deform- 
ity is perpetuated. Henceforth the stock grows out of 
shape. But, while the tree may thus become the subject 
of deformity, and necessarily exhibit through all its after 
life, the violence which it received in the greenness of its 
youth ; yet will the tree be spared the deep mortification 
and shame, which originates in a consciousness, that the 
perpetuated deformity is the consequence of its own 
action. 

But there is no such escape for the human mind. The 
consequences of all youthful delinquencies and obliquities 
inhere through all its future growth, and become thereby 
permanent defects, as in the case of the tree ; and then, 
moreover, there is the constant conviction of its own 



24 

neglect, or direct agency, in entailing this perpetual 
deformity upon itself. The results of such obliquity, in 
every case, are not mere traces upon the sand which may 
be readily and completely erased by after-action, but they 
henceforth grow into its very being, and oblige the inner 
energy, ever after, to work in and through the modifica- 
tions thus induced and perpetuated. And such permanent 
modification of the intellectual growth, for good or evil, 
stands out as a constant memento of the mind's own wise 
or wicked direction of its inner action. If the develop- 
ment has resulted in mature intellectual strength and 
beauty, the spirit rejoices not merely in its own actual 
worth, but in the superadded blessedness of a modest 
self-approbation, that this is the product of its own sacri- 
fice and watchful care ; but if it has only ripened into 
deformity, or been blasted in imbecility, there is not 
merely the mortification of inherent weakness and worth- 
lessness, but the deeper anguish of remorse in the 
consciousness that this has been self-inflicted. From 
whence can come the curse so bitter, as to live the 
blighted monument of one's own shame ! to bear about, 
in the deformity of our own being, the remembrance of 
our early folly ! and feel the testimony, in a perpetual 
incompetency, that we have ourselves secured for us the 
necessity that the good should rebuke us, and that the 
wicked should despise us, — on the other band, I can 
conceive of no superior blessedness to that which must 
await the perpetual experience of the immortal mind in 
its developed greatness and goodness, working on in the 
freeness and the fullness of its strength, giving to its 
Maker the glory and the grace of its high endowments, 
while it is permitted to be the eternal witness of the light 
and happiness which spring up constant along its onward 
pathway. 

Let it ever be held in remembrance, that every moment 
the mind is growing into that shape, which its own direc- 



25 

tion of the inner force is securing for it ; and that this is a 
growth which can never turn backward, to change the 
development of the passing hour, but constantly goes 
forward to perpetuate and confirm in the future the open- 
ings and shapings of the present. Every mind must first 
fashion its own features, and then wear them forever. 

A full and clear sense of personal responsibility for our 
intellectual growth, and the deep conviction that our own 
minds must eternally bear within themselves the retribu- 
tive results of the manner in which they permit themselves 
to be developed, would throw a sacred dignity and awe 
around all that belongs to the conditions and the direction 
of the inner working force, exceedingly proper and salutary 
for every young and forming intellect. 

Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard, 
By minds quite conscious of then high descent, 
Their present province and then future prize, 

Gentlemen, members of the Literary Societies 
here present. 

These principles and maxims have a direct application 
to your highest interests in precisely your present position. 
With you it is now the spring-time of your being. Every 
thing within is germinating quick and fresh, and you stand 
in companionship with budding and blossoming intellectual 
nature all around you. Every thing favors mental devel- 
opment. It is the time for growing, not by the forcing- 
process of confined artificial warmth and vapor in the 
green-house, but in the free air, and amid the open sun- 
shine and showers of heaven. A wise and well-proved 
course of cultivation is here applied, and it is rationally 
expected, that the few years' residence within these Halls, 
and under these propitious influences, shall send you forth 
to the advanced stage of professional preparation, and 
thence to the labors and responsibilities of active life, 



26 

with minds expanded, strengthened, disciplined, and 
ready to be ripened into full maturity in your first encoun- 
ters with the stormy world. 

Every field amid the wide activities of man, whether 
of professional, agricultural, mechanical, or mercantile 
pursuits, is becoming broader; opening higher interests ; 
filling with more ardent, hardy, and determined competi- 
tors ; and those minds, which are to succeed in the 
coming struggles and conflicts of the next generation, 
must be more vigorous, prompt, and persevering, than 
even the great men of the past and present age. The 
walks of literature and the paths of science branch off in 
more varied directions, and extend much farther, and are 
trod by a much greater throng, than in former centuries ; 
and the demands of humanity and active Christian benev- 
olence are louder and more extensive and urgent than 
ever before. The world never called for so much talent, 
earnestness, decision, and moral and intellectual strength, 
from any one of the past generations of her children, as 
she will ask from those who are to tread her surface 
contemporary with you. It may moreover be hoped, that 
the thousands of every past age, who have been enrolled 
in the armies and pressed into the navies of the nations, 
and whose grand end has been to learn the art and 
practice the work of human butchery the most success- 
fully, may hereafter be permitted mainly to crowd the 
marts of trade and commerce, and the shops and fields of 
peaceful industry, and thereby invention shall be quick- 
ened and competition heightened to their greatest intensity. 
Every thing indicates that God is preparing a work for 
man to accomplish, which it will demand the highest and 
the choicest type of manhood to meet. Mind is to be 
combined with mind, and work amid and upon mind, and 
it can be the strong and sound mind only, which shall 
fulfill the mission of its age. The work of intellectual 
cultivation and general melioration of outward condition, 



27 



and the process of evangelizing and sanctifying the human 
race, are to go on together. 

Yours, my young friends, is the privilege to live in such 
an era, and to you is now most kindly and profusely 
given the favoring opportunities for growing to a meetness 
to assume such high responsibilities. Give the mental 
germ its utmost expansion ; and make it grow symmetri- 
cally ; and then sacredly conscecrate every faculty to the 
cause of Humanity, Religion, and Truth. 

" He is the freeman whom the truth makes free," 
Who lives as reason, not as passion bids ; 
Who hears temptation sing, and yet turns not 
Aside ; sees sin bedeck her flowery bed, 
And yet will not go up; feels at his heart 
The sword unsheathed, yet will not sell the truth. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




